The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The article said the nursing home has 112 bedsWith an Alzheimer’s unitMy father died of Alzheimer’sHe had Parkinson’s first and then he got worseI used to visit him and he’d kind of grumble a little when I saidHi, DadHe’d grumble not like he knew me but like what I was doing to the morning sunWas bothering himHe’d grumble, my DadAnd, his hand shaking, point at something – not at me, at something past me, how far past I never knewWhen the gunman walked into the home past the healwoman and the healman and the sickmen and the sickwomen when the gunman began shooting the people at the nursing home in Carthage, N.C.What did the Alzheimer’s patients see?When my father was dying a nurse in hospice said we should keep talking to himThat he knew we were thereThat his soul which was in transitStill loved for us to visitWhen the gunman shot the woman who was 98What did the Alzheimer’s patients think?Did they point their shaking fingersThe way my Dad pointedA little past meOr did they pointAs the gunman didDirectly at what this life has come to be

Steve Hellyard Swartz is a regular contributor to new verse news. His poems have also appeared in best poem, switched-on gutenberg, Haggard and Halloo, and The Kennesaw Review. He has won honorable mention in The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards (2007 and 2008), The Mary C. Mohr and the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Awards. In 1990, his film, Never Leave Nevada opened at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah._______________________________

Monday, March 30, 2009

you wish tomorrow you couldsing that old song once againhow your dime was worthy of your hard time

and you could share your songwith multitudesand that old song would last youall day long

There is no NEA nor MFA influence in diverse writings of personal conflict and social consciousness by the poet Spiel, published frequently, internationally, online and in independent press journals. His latest books are: “she: insinuations of flesh brooding,” March Street Press and “once upon a farmboy,” MadmanInk. Learn more about Spiel at: www.thepoetspiel.name.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Before this latest mess they pestered usto use their cards, take out cute kit-your-homeout loans. Phone call, spam mail or snail, TV,imprint; end of the day, we fall. Roll up,ring out same tired theme tune: “It trickles down,prosperity, so all do well, d’you see.” Don’t say when they’ve recouped their share, be barebones left for you; blind rambling downturn blues.

They bind us to them heart and soul, refinewith clever marketing how we consume.The bubble burst, black hole, the butterflyeffect, dark stuff; weird quantum alchemy,base lead from gold. Though Jack’s all right, Next-door’sredundant, fifty-two, requires CV,asks you. No gay Antonio to bailhim out, needs money –"Mortgage, bills to pay."

They’ll goose you while you’re healthy, salmon-pink,try not to drain you dry; mostly you cope:‘Consolidate your debts into one place.’Then it’s red shift. Micawber’s “Something willturn up” won’t do. You’re irredeemable,can’t turn the tide. They take the reins: “The dealwas all explained to you before you signed.See there, small print, the bottom of the page.”

They charge-you-till-you-bleed and when you do,they seize what they already own: buy now -pay later stuff, your car, your home. You’re ina mental Marshalsea. They’re in control.“I’m being reasonable. Don’t take that tonewith me. It’s here in black and white. What’s that?You didn’t realise? Why? Can’t you read?Those tears won’t wash. There’s nothing I can do.”

Peter Branson is a creative writing tutor. Until recently he was Writer-in-Residence for "All Write" run by Stoke-on-Trent Library Services. He began writing poetry seriously about five years ago and has had work published by many mainstream poetry journals, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Iota, 14, Fire, The Interpreter's House, Poetry Nottingham, Red Ink and Other Poetry. In the last two years he has had success in several competitions including a first prize in The Envoi International, a second place in The Writing Magazine Open and a highly-commended in The Petra Kenney. His first collection, The Accidental Tourist, was published in May 2008.__________________________________________________

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Some wars we seem to want we do not need to winDespite the spite with which the fight is made,Despite the call by those we call our leadersDespite the shame imputed to the shameless many.Some wins we want do not need a war.

A war began yesterday but does not end today,Goes on for years, goes past all reason downThe road we didn’t want to go and past the roadWould take us back where we had been as boys

And girls safe in a place we could not placeAnymore for it is far foul gone for evermoreFrom mind and map, from war’s foul aim to winDespite the difference between want and need,Despite the love we could have won together.

In the last ten years, Martin Galvin has published over 170 more poems in a wide variety of journals and magazines, including Poetry, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Commonweal, Midwest Quarterly, Alimentum, OntheBus, Image, Poetry East, and New Issuesand in a number of anthologies including Best American Poetry 1997 and Poets Against The War edited by Sam Hamill. In 2007, he was awarded a month-long residency at Yaddo.__________________________________________________

Sometimes the hood is propped up,over an array of dark metal parts,an open cavern of coal-colored castings,a battery with colored buttons,a radiator with a screw-on cap.

Sometimes the dashboard is disentrailedand a rainbow of spiky wires reaches outlike a limp porcupine, still impressiveif past its punchy prime.

The cars vary. There’s the silvery one withno hubcaps and the run-down multi-purpose pick-up,the once-white Tercel and a BMW with no lights in view,a ‘72 Buick and a ‘75 Ford.

Everyday, my neighbor gets up and slips into his overalls.Everyday, he sips consommé bouillon with rice balls.Everyday, he lights a cigarette and contemplates a car that awaits,a project that beckons, a vehicle that might run todayor not.No bailout for him, no stimulus package in the offing,no industry to save, no clauses to waive,just keep puttering, just keep on puttering'cause sooner or later, this baby'll sputter and purr.

Meredith Escudier’s non-fiction work has appeared in various literary magazines, anthologies, the International Herald Tribune "Meanwhile" column and as an ongoing column in a monthly based in the south of France. She has just started submitting poetry, which is a genre that suits her more and more.__________________________________________________

Crime over love, blood over heart; they'll never takeme back. The Brooks Brothers suit has given way to soapopera as sick as the tobacco itching my yellow teeth.

Soon I will write down all my prime investments,dine on stored sonnets, on disputes and tragedies,live only to forget the recent past.

And shudder at the hissing sounds in my head, voicesfull of falsity that roll in like wild funeral griefeach time I plead for new relief.

Cary B. Ziter is the author of three published books for young readers. He earned his MFA from Bennington College and currently resides in upstate New York.__________________________________________________

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The lesson here must bethe terrible hymn of a pearlbecome dust, too long bereft

of human touch, disintegratedinto its own dry weightlike the rising number of tent dwellers

sorting throughthingarmentsdownto the bottomof the last supper citymission bin: finding nothing to fit, just

the lost pearl, broken loosefrom its button place.

We hold only this truthself-evident, a baublecrushed in the palm of our hand, standtogether, alone, wonder

who will lift us up?We are suddenly wisewho find nothing left to pawn.

Portrait artist and writer, Eliza Kelley, teaches Native American and Minority Literatures, Human Rights Discourse and Creative Writing at Buffalo State College in New York. Recent poetry and fiction appears in CONTE, RKVRY, Origami Condom, and Trillium.__________________________________________________

Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, Thou Shalt Not Kill, an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the previous administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. ____________________________________________

Monday, March 23, 2009

Chagrined is how the news clip catches Kathleenright behind me at my hearing--loyal disappointment.They've had the sense to air my readingof the passage I'd revised the most: " . . . miscalculated . . .ignored the misgivings of my staff . . . misinterpreted . . .unknowingly misinformed and thus misadvised . . .then mishandled . . . ." They show the Senatordefending my honesty, only to have me respond,"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll agree integritycan't excuse or correct my bungling." They switchto a story on the hurricane off the East Coast--same name as mine, though not my worry,nobody's error. Then a commercial for pain relief.

"Good job," my daughter assures me. My son nods.They slouch on either side of me, both as far awayas knowing better takes them. What is goodis my parents are dead--they'd crowd me,aware how commiseration castigates.

Kathleen keeps trying--tonight chicken piquant,though I can't eat. I couldn't make loveif she wanted. Another man might shoot himself--but tomorrow I'll be on the front page,maybe the headline. I've scheduled interviewswhere I'll elaborate on how I'm to blame.

Then other things will come--turning down the reporterwho'll offer to help with a book ("a cautionary tale,"she'll call it), agreeing to the divorce, sellingthis house, looking for less mistaken work.

William Aarnes’s first book, Learning to Dance, was published in 1991 by Ninety-Six Press, which also published his second collection, Predicaments, in 2001. His first published poem appeared in FIELD in 1969. Over the years he has had poems in such magazines as The American Scholar, The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Measure, Bateau, The Potomac ReviewandPoetry._______________________________

Scot Siegel is a poet and land use planner from Oregon, where he serves on the board of trustees for the Friends of William Stafford. He is the author of Some Weather (Plain View Press, 2008), and Untitled Country, a chapbook due out from Pudding House Publications in 2009._______________________________

Friday, March 20, 2009

Considering the length of timethat it takes lightto travel across intergalactic space –

Looking, often times, at starsthat have long since burned out –

Wavinggoodbye to America.

Charlie Mehrhoff has sent out little work in the past decade. Survival issues. However, he was recently featured in ORIGIN2, Sixth Series. Crafting the Word is a Web site window into his work.________________________________________

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Though polar ice sheets shatter, sliponto the ocean’s tonguevanish as if they had never beenThere will be music

though tyrants squander peaceclaim what isn’t theirs — gods, templescoins, the breath of innocentsThere will be music

while smoke of one hundred soulssmothers the sky of Dora& a belted youth turns to martyrThere will be music

while the ailing child moansin tremors of malaria& the exhausted mother expiresThere will be music

for the bent rice planters of Somonathe grape pickers of Sonomafor the deaf Nigerian gravediggerThere will be music

for the blushing desert sundownthe Afghan marriage feastsoon to followThere will be music

for lovers roaming the fields of Provencedaisies swinging in swellof summer — their buttons ablazeThere will be music

Megan Webster was an active member of SD Writer's Ink for many years as board member and poetry instructor. Her third chapbook, Bipolar Express, won a San Diego Book Award in 2004. Published by Finishing Line Press in 2006, it also was a finalist for the New Women's Voices Competition. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including, The Connecticut Review, Red River Review, ONTHEBUS, ROADS.poetry.com, Poiesis and Sunshine/Noir. _______________________________

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

We flout the rules:afraid our privilegewill be found out,distort the truthwhere there is scope for doubt.Secret cabals,meetings behind closed doors,witch hunt our enemies,settle new scores,corrupt the law-maker, march with the lout.

What do we do when thingsflip inside out?

Mouth what’s appropriate,sympathise, frown;hope it won’t last,a temporary blip,then, when the coast is clear,quietly jump town.What happens when the richcats leave the ship?Slowly we tire,go under, some folk drown.

Peter Branson is a creative writing tutor. Until recently he was Writer-in-Residence for "All Write" run by Stoke-on-Trent Library Services. He began writing poetry seriously about five years ago and has had work published by many mainstream poetry journals, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Iota, 14, Fire, The Interpreter's House, Poetry Nottingham, Red Ink and Other Poetry. In the last two years he has had success in several competitions including a first prize in The Envoi International, a second place in The Writing Magazine Open and a highly-commended in The Petra Kenney. His first collection, The Accidental Tourist, was published in May 2008.__________________________________________________

Marjorie Pollock is text messagingby the organic oranges at Whole Foods.Neal Ballenger holds a two poundground buffalo package in his left handa cell phone in his right.The newlyweds contemplate organic canesugar as second ingredients in yogurt.Daniel B. Hyde, 24 First Lieutenant army,Modesto California is dead in Iraq.

Beyond the three dollar collard greenstraffic zips and tears the afternoon.No need to signal or cut off the competition.It’s only three lanes and four hundred yardsto the gas station and a cheap hoagie.A homeless man passes out a newspaperat the traffic island. Put a little in the potplease, and God Bless you Jeffrey Reed 23Army Sergeant, Chesterfield, Virginia dead in Iraq.

Late afternoon stuffs the mind, wipespleasure off a job that may or may notexist in a few days, or tomorrow.Lorna Guzman, social worker for Womenin Distress hopes Day Care is taking careKeisha wants to tell the M.D.with 40 patients a day thatshe missed another period.She has to get home.She has a class tonight.Patrick DeVoe, he’s dead in AfghanistanTwenty-seven, Private First Classfrom Auburn, New York.You know where that is, but then

It’s almost dinner time and Shirleybrings in take out hot and sour, low meina side of barbecued wings.Did you hear Tiger’s back?TVs blink the news, the news, the news.Who did what and who said if?She’s a democrat underneath.How about that short horse in England?They think it’s stuck in mud.You know Rush and the other onewho took all the rich guy’s cash.He’s going to plead, but Lenowill have his say later on.

By the way, it is a full moon.Look out the window at the perfect sky.George Clooney may show upon ER, don’t forget and don’tforget the names whispered in the stars.Jessica, Daniel, Jeffrey, Patrickecho in blood, in guns, in storms They’re coming home.

David Plumb’s latest fiction book is A Slight Change in the Weather. He has worked as a paramedic, a cab driver, a, cook and tour guide. A long time San Francisco writer, he now lives in South Florida . Will Rogers said, “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” Plumb says, “It depends on the parrot.”__________________________________________________

Reality check, Sir King!Aren’t you the oneWho--- you know---Laid the Golden AIG?

Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to TheNew Verse News.More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl._______________________________

David Radavich's poetry publications include Slain Species (Court Poetry Press, London), By the Way (Buttonwood Press, 1998), and Great Hits (Pudding House Press, 2000), as well as individual poems in anthologies and magazines. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and abroad, including five Off-Off-Broadway productions. He also enjoys writing essays on poetry, drama, and contemporary issues. His latest book is America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (Plain View Press, 2007).__________________________________________________

Robert H. Bunzel was born in 1955, and lives in Piedmont, California. He is a practicing trial attorney in San Francisco, and 1978 graduate of Harvard College. His poems have appeared in local and national journals including Soundings East, Legal Studies Forum, Block’s Poetry Journal, Orphic Lute, Oxygen, Illya’s Honey, ZYZZYVA, White Pelican and Poet Magazine. He was president of the board of the literary tri-quarterly ZYZZYVA, “the last word in west coast writers and artists,” from 2002-2006. _______________________________

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Heather McNamara, 7, will be discharged from a New York hospital today after a daring, high-risk operation last month in which doctors removed six vital organs so they could take out a baseball-sized tumor that had invaded her abdomen and threatened her life. The marathon Feb. 6 operation lasted 23 hours. It was the first of its kind in a child and the second in the world, said the lead surgeon, Tomoaki Kato. In effect, the young cancer patient was both the donor and recipient of her own organs. . . . Kato's team removed and chilled the child's stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver and small and large intestines as they would for transplantation, so they could be restored after the tumor was taken out. --Steve Sternberg USA Today (March 10)

a stomach in a boxnext to a spleenalong with a liverintestineson ice like sodaor picnic potato saladin a box not in mewhile they cut it outmean old cancer ballgoodbye partsgoodbye stomachpancreas, spleenyet here I amgoing home to my sisterand my dog Angelleaving my partsin a box.

Lori Desrosiers' chapbook Three Vanities is being published by Pudding House Press. Her poems have appeared in Common Ground Review, Big City Lit, The Equinox, Ballard Street Poetry Journal, November 3rd Club, Blue Fifth Review, Gold Wake Press' mini-chapbook series and others. She is the managing editor/publisher of Naugatuck River Review, a journal of narrative poetry. She lives in Westfield, Massachusetts.__________________________________________________

But when those aid trucks rolled awayand I knewthat my children had suffered so longonly to die

I would curse the nationswho allowed the trucks to leavewho knew we would dieand did nothing.

Allene Rasmussen Nichols lives in Arlington, Texas, where she teaches English and drama at Gateway School. Her poems have been published in Philament, Ariel, Sylvan Echo and other journals and the anthology Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa. Her plays have been produced in California, Dallas, and New York.__________________________________________________

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Could be the lucky numbers in a fortune cookie butThey're notWhat they areIs one day's noted deadKilled in Germany, Alabama, Iraq, Sri LankaWe discover what the German teen was wearingCombat black so it seemsWe discover that the Alabama killer had tried but failed to land a job as a copWe discover almost nothing about the killers in Iraq and Sri LankaOther than they had strapped bombs to themselvesIn Las Vegas a man entered an ER and threatened to kill himselfThe police were called and he was told to lower his weaponWhen he refused, the cops shot and killed himMy mother told me yesterday that she thought her luck was turningShe said she didn't know why, she just didIn e-mails all around the world todayPeople east and westWill relate the grisly details of the mass murders in Germany and Alabama and Iraqand Sri LankaI'll call my mother this afternoonShe was eighty-three just the other day and she thinks her luck is turningIsn't that something to be happy about?Proof positive that it's never too lateWhen I call my mother todayI don't need a fortune cookie to know what she will ask meShe'll say my name, the name she's called meFor almost sixty yearsShe'll say my name as if I were still her little boyAnd in a voiceA little too loudWith a little too much urgencyShe'll ask of me:What's the good news?

Steve Hellyard Swartz is a poet, playwright, and filmmaker. His poems have appeared in New Verse News, Best Poem, HaggardandHalloo, switched-on gutenberg and The Kennesaw Review. He has won Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards twice (2007 and 2008), The Mary C. Mohr Poetry Awards, and the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. In 1990, Never Leave Nevada, which he wrote and directed and in which he co-starred, opened in Dramatic Competition at the U.S. Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.__________________________________________________

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

My wife tells me they’re fearless and boldWill goad you if you stumbled too closeTheir nests the work of solitudeWho needs a beak closing in on your earsA claw going for the tangle of child’s hair?

II

Shouldn’t I feel somethingConcerning the four Iraqis calling for killing?Blood their new national pastime,The money they’ve earned firing rifles,Keeping peace,Going to the poor with cheese, and bread, and IEd’s.We can’t go on like this,Says one twenty year oldWearing jeans and a cotton scarf around his mouth –The fluttering wings, color the wind, defy the skyBehind him.

III.

Plaster and plumage.One formed, dried, cutInto the body of a house.The other is just a good word.No correlation. No metaphor.Just feathers,A peacock's underbelly.The boy’s feathers are unfurled.Strutting in front of his house,He steps in blood. He kicks,Lose a few colors.His house won't miss a thing.A poem is a featherTorn loose from a house.He dreams in wings.

After graduating from LSU in 98, Chad Rohrbacher continued to refine his craft and published poetry, interviews, and book reviews in periodicals and journals nationwide including Spillway, Faultline, Sunstone, Blue Collar Review, New York Quarterly, Amelia, and others. He won won a Louisiana Division of the Arts Grant and an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship for poetry. Currently he is completing a book-length manuscript The Stories Neighbors Tell.__________________________________________________

Robert Stewart’s books include Outside Language: Essays (finalist for PEN Center USA Awards for 2004, and winner of the Thorpe Menn Award) and Plumbers (poems), and others. He is co-editor of the collection New American Essays (New Letters/BkMk Press, 2006), and editor of New Letters magazine, which won a 2008 National Magazine Award.__________________________________________________

Brandon Pettit is a former small town New Yorker now living in Florida as a 27 year old snowbird working on his MFA in poetry, although there are many afternoons he feels he is studying the art of disc golf.__________________________________________________

Sunday, March 08, 2009

One of our oxen perished yesterday.Please God the rest survive to work the ploughsrequired to service our sustaining corn.And Goodwife Holt's new born died unbaptisedat three hours old. Sweet Jesu, save us all.The local Indians are pacified,though much reduced of late, laid low by poxand pestilence. Their women cover uptheir nakedness with cheapest calicoand dyed cheesecloth: this fallen paradise.The men have taken from our ways, proclaimedOur blessed Lord saviour above all things,yet secretly still conjure heathen rites.The shaman told me of a dream he caughtlast night as if mere fletchings on the air.He scattered relics from his doeskin pouch,foretold the slaughter of great grazing beastsin numbers far too large to calculatebeneath the settled sun. He spoke of shipssteering the heavens to the moon and backon sails like dragons' wings. And at the helmwhite folk like us, determined to destroyour commonwealth, fledge Satan's acolytes,and mock the principles that drove us here,those freedoms sacrosanct. Men strode on cloudshigh overhead, releasing thunderboltsto shake the earth below; enormous firesburned hot and brilliant as a thousand suns,smoke stacks like mushrooms arching heavenwards,all living things spun out to so much dust.These visions trouble me, crawl round insidemy thoughts like scorpions, a sign perhapsGod's judgement is at hand. He saw lost soulshard at the devil's work, Christ's precious blood,enslaving freeborn peoples far beyondthis terrifying void we limped across.Black bile rising as sap from underground,a huge white flag made evening at noontide,striped by scourged blood, with fifty flashing eyeslike musket wounds, rents in a starless sky.

Peter Branson is a creative writing tutor. Until recently he was Writer-in-Residence for "All Write" run by Stoke-on-Trent Library Services. He began writing poetry seriously about five years ago and has had work published by many mainstream poetry journals, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Iota, 14, Fire, The Interpreter's House, Poetry Nottingham, Red Ink and Other Poetry. In the last two years he has had success in several competitions including a first prize in The Envoi International, a second place in The Writing Magazine Open and a highly-commended in The Petra Kenney. His first collection, The Accidental Tourist, was published in May 2008.__________________________________________________

Saturday, March 07, 2009

In his Frost-country cottage, the poetand his trusty L. C. Smith typewriterlabor in clear harmony this morning.The machine does its clacking actwhen the writer pounds the keys.

Only one whose finger musclesare still strong enough to clutchan axe handle or milk a cow, if need be,can muster strength to strike withforce worn-down letters like y or z,and others when pressed into action.

Here there is no angst or desirefor the ease which a chichi computerkeyboard could offer to curtailthe constant pain in the right handor the left one, too, for that matter.Poet and typewriter conspire, createa new song amid the view from theopen cottage window, where Bill Gatesseems irrelevant, does not intrude.

Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to TheNew Verse News.More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl._______________________________

Friday, March 06, 2009

Chinese HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles are with the Taliban, we know this . . . and we are worried where do the Taliban get them, some of these weapons have been made recently in Chinese factories—Unidentified senior Afghan government official reported by the BBC (2009)

the new presidentthe apostate presidentwhose grandfather's soulcries from his gravefor the blood of the unbelieverwho brings shame upon his housethis new presidentsays he will surge quietlyin Logar, in Wardak and Helmandin the holy provinceswhere the Russians sent their sonsto die miserably where the Britishsent their sons to die miserably

our weapons are from Chinathe old USSR the US the UK(we like the weapons of our enemies)from our brothers in Syriain Saudi Arabia and Iran

surge quietly Hussein Obamathis land will eat you quietlywe will be here when you have gonewhen you have taken the flag-wrappedbodies of your sonshome in shame and defeat

you will never be enoughyou will never have long enoughbefore your nation weakensgrows weary again

send us your unwanted sonsHussein Obamathis dry earth needs their bloodsurge lite surge quietwe will devour all of youlite and quiet and slow

Steve Parker is a UK poet working near Haworth in Yorkshire. He’s been published in various journals and zines etc, including Underground Voices, The Chimaera, The Cleave, Ditch, Dogzplot, Cause and Effect, Admit Two, Chaos International, Machenalia etc etc, with more forthcoming. Published in a couple of anthologies, with two poems forthcoming in the Cleave Anthology this Spring. Also published a couple of short collections, with another coming soon. Parker was a founder-member of the Orzel Collective experimenting with transtextual poetry. He also runs a poetry and critique forum and has a lively poetry blog.__________________________________________________

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Blood darkens the stones of the city.For ashes and dust there’s no lack.The world seems a place without pityas children lie dead in Iraq.Obama has ordered more sortiesto carpet bomb Afghanistanyoung men from their teens to their fortiesmust wipe out the damned Taliban.You’ll know when this World War is overwhen grass roots weave into your headand red clay and iron ore and cloverform a crazy quilt for your cold bed.

Anne Bryant-Hamon has had poetry published in both print and on-line poetry journals including Bumbershoot, Lucid Rhythms, Romantic Hearts Magazine, The Chimaera, The Green Tricycle, 2 River View.__________________________________________________

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

This is our legacy: a city constructed of empty wallets,a country whose borders are lined with digital wealthwhich floats above our heads as sure as it is ironclad plastic.our futures, vaulted beneath our voluptuous APR, hopefully might gain interestfrom our new saviour, Stimulus – let's not crucify him on our dollar sign cross we'vehung around our necks like a soft curved noose in which we trust (it says so on the bill);the gallows are under eye of penthouse suite and corner office,while the slack on the rope lessens cent by cent, a biweekly thread from our paychecks –

This is our legacy: no riots for bread, no countrywide drought, no proletarian fists,but the necessary fasting from multimedia lattes where we have no famine.the eighth wonder of the world will be our excess retail lying dusty on the shelvesof our local, neighbourhood, WALMART, the beauty of the overcast sunrise under GM clouds,our Debt, holding the belt for heavyweight champion of the world! for decades running.Cast your eyes away from the Pyramids and the Sphinx, Stonehenge and The Acropolis!They are only tangible and crumble, unlike our Dream Manifest,which is set with stone checkbooks and credit mortar,the Eiffel Tower only mimics our oil fields,the Hanging Gardens of Babylon do not hang so elegantly as the ties of our beloved CEOs,and the Great Wall is almost as long as the receipt for our Debt.

But our excess exceeds!like the rambling tangent of geriatric memory, like mediation of a Buddhist monk,like grandpa's Thanksgiving prayer pit against hunger,like rush-hour peppered by the red sea of lights on car backs and intersections,like library codes, like Mass, like politician's speeches, like celebrity murder trials,like the moment between "will you?" and "yes!", like graduation ceremonies,like waiting for the bus, like The Velvet Underground and Nico,like waiting for the doctor to tell you the truth, like pulling the plug,like a museum when you're seven years old, like finding a light in a church parking lot,like the crescendo, like the aria, like Southern California sun or Portland rain,like all the things we hate and love, that are, and will be, it goes on,and on, with them, in place of them, written into our history like a declaration of dependence;we are woven to our wallets, spent by their emptiness.This is our legacy.

Mike Harper graduated with a BA in English at Cal State Fullerton and works to sustain a community of local artists in his corner of Orange County, California. He poetry is a palimpsest of questioned suburban imagery. Ingredients: 2 shots of espresso, 1 carefully rolled cigarette, 1 bicycle, a dash of modernism, a touch of dissent, and continual immersion in the community of his environs. _______________________________

Monday, March 02, 2009

He works all day in the sewage line"I live smelling death, but it is fine."Two dark hands, his only tine"I live smelling death, but it is fine."Caste and curse his days assign"I live smelling death, but it is fine."Day after day in the sewage line"I live smelling death, but it is fine."Delhi sing, city shine"I live smelling death, but it is fine."To his fate he does resign"I live smelling death, but it is fine."His labor there makes light of mine"I live smelling death, but it is fine."Day after day in the sewage line

Kerol Harrod lives in Denton, Texas with his wife and two daughters. He has published news and opinion articles in a variety of forgettable publications, such as The Denton Record-Chronicle, The Flywheel, Inside Track, and The Denton Scramble magazine. In 2003, he recorded and toured a CD of protest music, Police State of the Union, which dealt with current events (at the time), specifically the Iraq War. It enjoyed some airplay in the Austin and Houston area. He currently works in the reference department of the Denton Public Library.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

We claimedwe didn't know anythingabout how this would beright up to the day

the dragon,the one we'd been watching stir for ages,

the one whose back had been humping upthe earth like a monstrous gopher as long as we could recall,the one whose scales had been landing on uslike scalding flowers for eons,the one whose breath had tanned us so rawthat warm drizzle felt like an alcohol bath,the one with eyes like star sapphiresthat dazzled us into inaction,

until the day the dragon rose intofull and awesome viewand demanded our firstborn, our secondborn;demanded that he be slaked and satisfiedwith all our legacies; demanded nothing explicitbecause his sheer sudden command of the common skytold us all we needed to know then and evermore;

and then we ran about like cindersjerking crazily in the general cloud of destruction,

sparks that vanished even as we flew,lost in the heat of a momentwe'd known was coming for yearsand yethad denied as easily as any other godwe'd ever taken on casual terms...

of course,since we had made this one ourselves,we still believed we could remake itright up to the secondthat we fell, consumed,back to the black groundas fodder for whatever follyfollowed us.

Tony Brown is a poet living in Worcester, MA. His work has appeared in The Riverwalk Journal, The November 3rd Club, and many other publications and Anthologies. A chapbook, Flood: New Poems, will be published soon by Pudding House Publications._______________________________

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